British Astronaut Competes in London Marathon from ISS (cnn.com)

An anonymous reader writes: "British astronaut Tim Peake became the first man to complete a marathon in space on Sunday, running the classic 26.2 mile distance while strapped to a treadmill aboard the International Space Station..." reports Reuters. "The 44-year-old spaceman saw London's roads under his feet in real time on an iPad as, 250 miles below him, more than 37,000 runners simultaneously pounded the streets." Meanwhile, in a show of solidarity, two earth-bound runners ran the marathon wearing space suits.
CNN notes that Peake "ran the race for real in 1999," but this time competed with avatars that represented actual runners who were using the Run Social app. His zero-gravity run took longer -- more than three and a half hours -- while a Kenyan runner ultimately won the race, completing the whole 26.2-mile course in just two hours, three minutes and four seconds, the second-fastest time ever recorded.

Comments

Re:Road To Nowhere

[Rei]

The frame of reference that he launched from and that we live on (the surface of the Earth directly below where we stand) is probably a pretty good one, I would think.

You don't have cops pulling people over and saying, "Do you realize how fast you were driving relative to Sagittarius A*?"

Re: Risky

[Malc]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/scie...

Elastic straps over the shoulders and round the waist keep Major Peake in contact with the running belt of the treadmill, located in the station's Tranquility Node.

The straps are designed to generate the foot force necessary to give astronauts' bones and muscles a workout in weightlessness.

He said: "One of the biggest challenges is the harness system. Obviously, my bodyweight has to be firmly attached to the treadmill by this harness, and that can rub on the shoulders and around the waist."

The Chichester-born astronaut ran the London Marathon in 1999, finishing in three hours, 18 minutes and 50 seconds.
He did not try to beat that time as his medical team wanted to ensure he was perfectly healthy for his return to Earth in June.

He's clearly a very good runner and although they say he didn't try to break his previous record for safety reason, isn't it more likely that it's because it was 17 years ago?

Re:Shark

[Sarten-X]

Now, what's being overlooked, of course, is the scientific merit of such a feat. This is one of those cases where we have an opportunity to gather data at very little additional cost, and it may reveal new insight that may assist future work.

If we ever do leave Earth for a significant length of time, running on a treadmill is one of the often-proposed mechanisms for maintaining muscle during the long trip, and possibly for the long stay at an extraterrestrial outpost. Unfortunately, we haven't really had much success with treadmills so far. Even with rigorous exercise, astronauts have typically lost up to 0.4-1% of their bone density per month in space, and when we're talking about trips of several years, that's a significant health hazard. This run provides a rare insight: what if the astronauts do more than just "rigorous exercise"? What if they routinely do what would be extreme on Earth?

During the run, Peake's body was monitored, and of course routine measurements will continue. This may provide a promising avenue for future research, or it may not. It may indicate against future research in this direction. Either way, the expense to do it now is only a few hours of time, rather than the millions or billions of dollars to run a specialized experiment.

Don't think of it as spending money to run a marathon in a spectacular war. We already spent the money to put people in space, and now we're getting every bit of data we can for that money.